Rachel Lee (24 page)

"No ... no." She shook her head.

He waited, wondering if he needed to prod her some more. Because, he was discovering, he couldn't stand to have Joni upset and not know why.

He couldn't stand being unable to help her in some way. It was a new and unexpected feeling. And if he'd had an ounce of common sense, he would have realized that feeling was even more dangerous than their lovemaking had been.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice small. "I'm sorry. Last night was...

Well, it was everything I'd ever dreamed of. More than what I'd dreamed."

Did she mean that she'd dreamed of him? His heart seemed to slam, and he cast his mind back over the years, trying to discover if there'd been any indication back in high school.

But he couldn't remember any. She'd always treated him like her cousin's boyfriend, somebody to tease or be pleasant to as the mood or moment required. He couldn't remember any longing looks or any hints, however faint, that she was interested in him.

Part of him thought it was egotistical to even consider such a possibility. But a deeper part of him wondered anyway. Hoped, even, that he hadn't been alone in the yearning that had made him decide to break up with Karen.

Although even then he'd known that if he ditched Karen, Joni wasn't going to go out with him. She would have been too loyal to do that.

Even so, he felt like a sleaze for dating one girl when he was wanting another. So the gentlemanly thing was to break up with Karen, even if it meant being alone.

But Joni. Nah, he told himself. If she'd dreamed of him, it had probably been recently. Not while he and Karen had been an item. Not that he thought she would have been a bad person if she had--no, a bad person would have acted on those urges. Like him.

God, he hated himself. Then he wondered how he'd gotten all tangled up. He'd been going steady with Karen, but they'd been kids, and going steady wasn't a lifelong commitment. Which meant there was nothing wrong with him for wanting to break it off. That was natural and normal at that age. At any age, actually, when you weren't married.

So he hadn't been doing anything wrong. Wrong would have been dating some other girl behind Karen's back. He hadn't done that. He hadn't acted on his yearning in a dishonorable way.

But man, he sure wished he'd broken up with her sooner. Wished he'd done anything to keep them off the road that night. "What did you dream of?" he heard himself ask.

There was a silence. Long. Heavy. Pregnant with possibilities that had him feeling like he was on tenterhooks.

"You," she said finally, her voice almost atonal. "I was jealous."

He considered a number of different ways to respond. Considered telling her that he'd been about to break off with Karen. But, he asked himself, was that going to make her feel any better?

"Do you feel guilty about that?" he asked.

"Constantly."

He could identify with that. "Yeah," he said. "Me too."

She looked at him as if she was about to ask a question, but just then an oncoming car lost control.

It began to spin out on some ice, and for an instant he froze, remembering that night so long ago. But then his reflexes kicked in.

Letting up on the gas, he started to take an evasive maneuver, one that would keep them from colliding with the oncoming car, which was spinning wildly and still coming straight at them, too fast.

The river. He didn't want to go into the river. Gauging the snowbank beside the road, he tried to figure what angle to hit it, an angle that wouldn't flip the car.

He hit the brakes, feeling the anti locks kick in with rapid jolts.

God, the road was pure ice. The tail of the other car was swinging right toward him. The snowbank was too close. No room. At the last instant he saw his opening and steered right toward it. A moment later he felt the impact as they hit the snowbank.

Hannah was trying to talk Witt into eating a turkey sandwich on whole wheat when the call came. Witt didn't like whole-wheat bread. She had also discovered he wouldn't eat oatmeal for breakfast, that he wouldn't eat anything for breakfast except bacon and eggs, and he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life eating spinach pasta--which she hadn't offered him--just because some idiot doctor thought it would be good for him.

In fact, she'd discovered that as far as he was concerned, he would rather sit in that chair and die than live anything but his normal life.

She told herself the anger was a good sign, better than the silent, motionless depression of the last few days. At least he was reacting.

But when the turkey sandwich hit the floor, she had had enough.

"Damn it, Witt," she said, she who never swore. "I will not be treated this way."

"Then get the hell out. I'll make myself some decent food."

She was tempted, sorely tempted. He had worn her out more than any obstreperous patient ever had. Possibly because she didn't get a break after every eight hours. More likely because she cared too much about Witt. "No," she told him, reverting to her more usual calm demeanor.

"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction."

He got out of the chair. "Then stay out of my way. I'm going to make myself a real sandwich."

"That might be difficult. I threw out the white bread, the roast beef, the mayonnaise..."

"Who the hell gave you the right to do that?" he thundered.

She didn't even bother to answer. She could see he was fuming mad, and she felt a pang of fear, given what he'd been through. Then she reminded herself that there was no way to keep Witt from getting angry forever. Nor was his condition so bad that he couldn't survive it. A serious shock might cause him a problem, but this kind of anger? Not likely.

"Get out of my way, woman."

"Don't you talk to me like that, Witt Matlock. I've had enough of your attitude."

"Attitude? I'll give you attitude." He shouldered past her and stomped into his kitchen, flinging open the refrigerator to reveal exactly what she'd promised. No bacon, no eggs, nothing fatty at all.

"What the hell have you done to me?"

"I'm taking care of you."

"What's the point? I don't want to live if I have to give up everything I enjoy."

"You don't. Just the foods that are bad for you."

He glared at her, but she refused to glare back.

"I,"

he said, "am going to keep on living the way I've always lived."

"You know, Witt, you're a tiresome man." As soon as she spoke the words, she realized something: Witt reacted to everything that was beyond his control with anger. Yes, he was tiresome, but only because he seemed to have one emotional tone when he was unhappy about anything. And right now he wasn't really angry about food. He was frightened.

"Then leave me alone," he said.

"Don't be a jackass. You're scared, I know you're scared, and you'll only be more scared if I leave you alone."

He glared at her but didn't hurl any more nasty words her way. The silence that suddenly stretched between them was profound. Hannah felt herself holding her breath, waiting . but for what she couldn't say.

Into that silence came the ringing of the phone. It was an old phone, and the ringer was jarring, loud. Witt jerked, and Hannah jumped. For an instant she considered ignoring it, but its clamor wouldn't silence.

Turning, she snatched it from the hook.

"Hello?"

"Hannah? Hannah this is Sam Canfield. You might want to come to the emergency room."

"Joni?" Fear clutched her heart, drove everything else from her mind.

"She's been in a car accident. There don't appear to be any major injuries, but she's unconscious."

Hannah didn't wait to hear any more. She dropped the phone in the cradle and headed for the mud porch.

"Hannah?" Witt asked. "What's wrong with Joni?"

"I have to go to the hospital. She's been in an accident."

"I'm going with you."

She turned on him then. "Are you, Witt? Are you? You disowned her, remember? You don't have any rights at all anymore."

"I'm going anyway."

She didn't argue this time, just grimly started pulling on her boots and parka. It didn't do any good to argue, anyway, she told herself miserably. Witt was as hardheaded as a concrete block. And Joni seemed to be the same way.

All she knew right then was that her heart felt as chilly as the January day.

Ijbd, I hate emergency rooms," Sam Canfield said. He was sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, across from Hardy.

" Ever since the night my wife died, I can't sit here without remembering. "

Hardy nodded, although he was so worried about Joni he didn't have much room for feeling anything else. "You don't have to sit with me, Sam.

I just got a few bruises. I'll live."

"Maybe. If Witt doesn't show up with Hannah. And what do you think the likelihood of that is?"

Hardy didn't want to think about it. Bad enough about Karen. He could just imagine how Witt would react this time. Not that it mattered what Witt might say or do. At this point Hardy was beating himself up with a mental baseball bat, beginning with bashing himself for even considering taking a relative of Witt Matlock's in his car again. Good God almighty, he needed his head examined.

And Joni. God. He felt bad about keeping Sam here, but Sam was the only way he could find out about Joni's condition. Doctors were weird that way. If you weren't family, you could kiss off getting any news.

"It wasn't your fault, Hardy," Sam said for probably the fifteenth time.

"It was my fault she was in my car."

"Since when is that a crime?" Sam snorted. "It's not like you caused the accident. I could see plain as day what happened out there. What you did was keep the two of you from getting killed. That damn boat of a car was going too fast. Even in that skid he'd've killed you if he'd hit you head-on."

Hardy just shook his head. He'd heard all this stuff when Karen had been killed. Wasn't his fault. The other driver was drunk and came straight for him. Sure. That was what had happened. But Hardy had hardly passed a day without wondering what he could have done differently. Now he was going to do the same thing about today.

God, if he ever took another Matlock in his car, he was going to cut his own throat.

"It's karma," he heard himself say.

Sam lifted his eyebrows. "You believe in that?"

"I'm beginning to."

Sam bobbed his head a little, a maybe-so agreement. "Or just some really rotten luck."

"Same thing."

"Maybe." Sam sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. "It doesn't do any good, you know."

"What?"

"Second-guessing. Doesn't do a damn bit of good. I've second-guessed that day Bonnie was killed until I'm not sure I even remember it right anymore. Anyway, hindsight's always twenty-twenty. Problem is, all those things you think you should have done just plain don't occur to you beforehand."

"I guess not." But that didn't help the feeling of guilt any.

Sam checked his watch. "Time to go bug the nurses for information," he said. "Sit tight."

As if Hardy was going to do anything else, except maybe bust into the treatment rooms and demand to see Joni. Which would probably get him thrown out of the hospital.

Smothering a groan of despair, he leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He'd been luckier than Joni, just a few bruises and a huge headache. It should have been him lying in the bed in there, unconscious. Not Joni.

Joni. Her name kept echoing inside him, bouncing off the walls he'd tried to build around his heart. Remembering how she'd looked only last night when they'd made love. Remembering how her every sigh had seemed to send tendrils of warmth to the farthest reaches of his soul.

Remembering how she'd fled from him.

He lifted his head and told himself to get a magazine from one of the tables. Read something distracting. Stop whipping himself over things he shouldn't have done and would never forget.

Christ. The only two accidents in his entire driving life, and one of Wilt's girls had been involved in each. It had to be karma. "Hardy?"

Sam entered the waiting room from the corridor. "She's awake. I twisted some arms, and you can go in and see her. Three doors down on the left."

Hardy started to dart from the room, then caught himself. "How is she?"

"She appears to be fine. They're going to keep her overnight for observation, because of the concussion, but they don't see anything significant wrong."

He didn't wait any longer. Walking as fast as he could, he left the waiting room, traveled down the short corridor and through the swinging doors of the E.

R.

treatment area. Three doors down and on the left, he found her.

The head of the bed was cranked up a little, and she was lying on a pillow. An IV was hooked to her arm, but he guessed that didn't mean much. It was probably standard procedure.

She didn't even look especially pale, although her color wasn't as high as it usually was. Her lips were still pink, though, and slightly parted. Her long dark hair needed combing, but that didn't keep it from looking beautiful splashed across the pillow. In fact, he thought she had never looked more beautiful.

He approached the bed hesitantly, reluctant to disturb her if she was asleep, yet needing to hear her voice. Desperate to hear her voice.

Karen hadn't said a word ever again after the accident, and he couldn't help feeling that he would believe Joni was okay only if he heard her voice.

She must have sensed his presence, because her eyes opened and fixed on him. "Hardy?"

Relief and joy filled him in equal measures. He crossed the space between them in two long strides and took her hand gently. "How are you feeling?" "Not too bad. I have a headache, and a big goose bump where my head hit the window. At least that's what they think happened. I don't remember. How are you?"

"A few bruises. No biggie."

"Good." She sighed and squeezed his hand, closing her eyes for a few seconds. "I remember that other car skidding toward us, but I don't remember much else."